Last season, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Atlanta Hawks were both in the crowded morass of teams in the Eastern Conference’s middle tier, and both suffered the same playoff fate, a humiliating exit against the eventual champion New York Knicks.
Tonight, they’ll face off for the first time this season at 8 p.m. ET at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, in a clash that controversially necessitated the movement of the Atlanta Dream’s WNBA Finals game to earlier in the day.
The Hawks are 1.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-115 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 237.5. The Cavaliers are -105 on the Moneyline.
Below, I’ll break down my favorite prop bets from tonight’s matchup, choosing one player from each team.
Cavaliers vs. Hawks Player Prop Bets
James Harden O11.5 Assists + Rebounds (-115)
Harden hasn’t had the greatest scoring season so far, averaging just 15.8 points per game and posting just 33-29-86 shooting splits, but he’s still made a fairly well-rounded impact to help Cleveland to a 3-1 start. He’s averaged 4.5 boards and 6.8 assists per game, recording at least 12 rebounds/assists per game in two of his four contests, and he ranks 16th in potential assists per game. He’s basically reprised the same role as he did last season, as he averaged 71.5 touches per game in his Cavaliers stint in 2025/26 and 73.0 so far. In those 26 games last season, he cleared this bar 16 times.
I’m still not sold that Atlanta’s defense is truly elite. The Hawks did go 19-5 while allowing the ninth-fewest rebounds and fifth-fewest assists per game over the remainder of the 2025/26 regular season after adding CJ McCollum to the starting lineup full-time on February 22, but they allowed the third-most boards and seventh-most assists per game in the postseason. So far in 2026/27, Atlanta has given up the ninth-most rebounds and sixth-most assists, and though it’s a small sample size, its three-guard starting lineup, shorter-than-average center, and fast-paced offense should make it theoretically susceptible to big counting stats on the glass.
Dyson Daniels 3+ Steals (+169)
Daniels averaged 3.0 steals per game in his Most Improved Player-winning 2024/25 campaign, reaching that threshold in 45 of his 76 games, and while he dropped back slightly to 2.0 steals per game in 2025/26, that was still good for second league-wide. So far this season, Daniels is averaging 3.4 swipes per contest while recording at least three in three of his five games, including seven against the Charlotte Hornets in the second game of the season. He also leads the league in deflections per game after dropping back to fourth in that stat in 2025/26.
Cleveland generally takes decent care of the ball, but it can be sloppy in possession at times. The Cavaliers did rank a solid seventh in turnovers per game after trading for Harden at last season’s trade deadline, but they recorded the second-most giveaways per game during the postseason. So far this season, Cleveland also ranks eighth-to-last in turnovers per game, and Harden has nine bad-pass giveaways, which Daniels could take advantage of if he primarily guards either Harden or Donovan Mitchell. He defended one of the two for a combined 202.3 partial possessions last season and forced 11 turnovers. All in all, Daniels had three or more steals in two of his four games against the Cavaliers last season, although both came before Harden’s arrival.
